Tiff
by Tris'sLightningQuill
Summary: Roses have a hard time growing in the cracks between stones, away from sun and soil; having Cranes peck at them constantly doesn't help either. A sort of prequel to Implicit, playing with the teenage Rosie/Crane dynamic.


Dangerously close to lights-out, she was still hunched in the lab, her sharp nose keeping pace with the nib of her reed pen as it _scritched_ its way across and down the heavy paper. They both had gulped a light supper in the anteroom—fetched by a subservient freshman—but three and a half hours on from that, Isas was thoroughly ready to quit the books. He had already dutifully blotted the day's papers, and neatly stowed his share of equipment and materials, and now levered himself off the uncompromising work bench to languidly stretch out his long frame, joints popping in a ripple.

The girl at the other end of the trestle table took no notice whatsoever, consistently as obliviously intent on her scribbling as she'd been the past hour. The tall count's son drifted over to make a show of dancing from foot to foot to peer over her shoulder, with a vague mix of interested apprehension and annoyance; the workday for most had spent itself and he very much would like to be gone and make the most of the night, while she sat there for all the world as if she meant to continue the night through. They'd matched each other at a steady pace since the session began that morning. She could only be working this late with such unrelenting haste to either catch him up or, more likely—he gulped in academic anxiety—to outmatch him.

Pointedly, he cleared his throat. The girl's pen faltered for a moment but barreled on again heedlessly as if to make up for the lapse. She neither turned nor spoke nor gave any sign that she was aware of his existence other than her firmly turned back.

"Niva," he persisted, "leave off."

The girl called Niva briefly craned a sparrow's gimlet eye on him. "Leave off, yourself." she returned, wholly unconcerned. "And hush, while you're about it."

"They'll be dousing lights soon," he tried again. "They'll leave you in the dark."

"Let them." She didn't even deign to look up from her scrawling this time.

Somewhat at a loss, Isas stood nonplussed for a moment, arms hanging limp from shoulders, and wrists limper still as he faced his inability to budge her.

"You know full-well the laboratory _must_ be manned in tandem," he said after a time, which got no rise out of her at all, save a hand flung out impatiently in a dismissive gesture. He did not know whether to take that to mean that she did not care that he was trapped there with her, or that she did not care for the consequences should he abandon his post. Attempting to tug her sheaf away from her earned him nothing more than a surprisingly sharp rap to the knuckles, after which he backed off temporarily, swinging the offended members exaggeratedly, muttering his indignation more than his hurt. Still, the relentless _scritch scritching_ of the pen went on, showing she cared not a whit. More likely, came the glum thought, she _did_, and was only being perverse to irk him.

Presently, Isas thought to try a different tack. Crouching on hunkerbones so as to be level with her golden-brown gaze should he indeed manage to wrest it it up, he ungently tapped her shoulder. "Come _on_," he cajoled, prodding her again with such steady force that her slight frame was forced to rock where she sat. As he'd hoped, Niva, rightening herself, turned to glare. "It's restday." he went on. "The whole campus will have turned out by now, seeking a reprieve from this exhausting tedium in the diversions of the pleasure district."

Unabashed, Niva thrust out open-handed to shove him in the chest so that he stumbled back and hand to scramble right quick to keep his crouch from become a bottom-first sprawl on the tiles. Eyes already back on the ledger before her, Niva missed the ignominy entirely.

"And I suppose that's where you'd like to be, then?" she drawled, unconcerned.

Tugging his starched black silk collar and cuffs back into place with a sniff, Isas shrugged noncommittally. "We've both been at this a long time, that's all I'm saying." Her long braid spilled down her back, its curling end just brushing her wooden seat with the minimal shifts in posture that accompanied her progress down the page: a burnt cinnamon rope mimicking the contours of her spine, just waiting on an obliging hand to give a tug... Isas blinked in consternation at the errant impulse until it scuttled away.

She could keep up this farce of ignoring him for hours; she'd done it before. "Niva..." It was beginning to sound quite a bit like pleading. He ought to just pick her bodily up, march her out of the lab, and have done with it. It was an testament to her intractableness, and his own frustration and eagerness to be gone, that he was actually considering this as a viable course of action when she dropped her reed and rounded on him, fuming.

"Oh, stop your fidgeting, I can't—" But here she interrupted herself, eyes widening in surprise, to sneeze mightily into the crook of her elbow, thrice in rapid succession.

"Bless you," Isas put in dryly. Over her handkerchief, here eyes burned at him like two baleful embers.

Today of all days, Niva, ever caustic, had contrived to be doubly irritable, thanks to the [summer] cold she'd managed to pick up somewhere. Throughout the day, her intermittent sniffling—climbing subtly in frequency as the day wore on—had given punctuation to the workaday laboratory sounds of bubbling brews, shuffling papers, and clacking cabinets. Wholly engrossed in her tasks, Isas had caught Niva more than once neglecting the handkerchief stuffed up her sleeve and turning unconsciously to the more handy cuff instead. Stemming her dripping nose on the brown homespun of her sleeve, she looked like nothing so much as the back-country brat he was always teasing her for. He'd plagued her with the self-same taunt today—twice, in point of fact—his only reward being an ink-loaded reed pen hitting him squarely in the cheek. Yet, she kept dragging the rough cloth mindlessly across her face. Isas, though he somehow could not bring himself to stop using them, knew the jibes at her parochial origin hit more smartly home than any others. She'd lost that faint accent and odd turns of phrase quickly enough. Still, here she was, with her mind fully occupied, snuffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve like an uncultured child half again her age. Isas did not try to work that out: there were more parts and workings to small, stocky Niva al'Terra than to the most complex of perfumes.

Recovering both her breath and her poise, Niva made to return to her scrivenings as if nothing untoward had occurred, and Isas threw himself into a last-ditch gambit, grasping at the attention she had finally shifted to him, which the untimely paroxysm had redirected.

"Yes," he wheedled, "so I'd like to go out for the evening. What of it?"

The dark-haired girl's affectation of oblivion continued unabated, making clear exactly what she thought of it.

"Come with me!" he offered impulsively, seizing her hand. She was forced to look up long enough to shake him off.

"Are you offering to clean up in morning?" she inquired rhetorically, brow cocked. Combining alcohol with her bewildering brand of magic once before—that he had witnessed—had produced..._interesting _...after-effects, ones a heartily chagrined Niva had sword she'd never reproduce. Though he had chosen to complete his ordinance at Winding Circle, Isas despaired of ever understanding these odd ambient mages; with magic that responded unpredictably, illogically, the morning-after head and stomach were the least worrisome repercussions of a night of adolescent overindulgence.

"As of now, I'm veritably begging." Isas threw down all his cards. "Only, let's _go_!" He caught her wirst and tried to tug her from her seat; a deceptively difficult task, given that little Niva was much sturdier than she looked. Try to shift her, and she'd become rooted to the ground. Some days, Isas half believed that even if he did manage to pry her feet loose, he'd find little white tendrils protruding there, furious at being yanked from the earth.

Acutely annoyed that her refusal had done so little to put him off, annoyed at his dogged persistence but equally unwilling to give sway, Niva snatched her arm away and spun to shout at him, "Oh, go and find some dolly-mop to pester! Leastways, she'll be _paid_ for the trouble."

"Now, that's simply rude," he told her, wondering whether he oughtn't be offended.

Unrepentant, she only shrugged. "It's true."

Any further exchange was forestalled, however, by a second fit of sneezing, which Niva, still showing unabetted irritation, hastily intercepted with her handkerchief.

Isas began a jibe at pampered ladies and their susceptibility to allergens, referencing an earlier-in-the-day tiff sparked by his refusal to believe her insistence that she was indeed suffering in the throes of a common cold. Based on all prior evidence, Niva seemed to be one of those fortunate, loathsome individuals who never seemed to sicken, ever, under any circumstances.

The girl shot him a poisonous look, still too breathless to berate. The venom glittered behind a rime of fever-glass: Isas' teeth clicked together as he let the last of his words die on his tongue.

A moment of dry-mouthed silence passed, and abruptly, sniffling, Niva burst out peevishly, "Oh, it's this _place_." She tossed down her reed pen and carelessly shoved her stack of papers away. "It's so _dusty_." she complained.

Isas said nothing. Niva made no secret of her dislike for Lightsbridge College: its stringent rules and regulation, its student body, the greater part of its staff, its food, its location, its architecture. But, really, he thought, she only fussed about it so to be contrary. The faults she found were trivial, at best; in fact, _he_ rather liked it there. In truth, Isas held, what persnickety little Niva from Anderran basically disliked about the campus setting was the fact that he thrived in it. Though she'd never own to it, should he challenge her. The only thing she hated about these orderly stone halls was how well _he_ fit into them. It was not his fault that she did not, surely. With the standardization of lecture and dormitory and laboratory, there was not room for the special treatment she'd obviously come to expect at Winding Circle. They coddled the girl at Discipline Cottage. Rewarding antisocial behaviors was not the proper way to deal with them, he thought. Certainly not the way he'd go about it. Adhering to the coded methods of the University, one's merit was spelled out in black marks on white paper, not a matter of vagary based on favoritism and unquantifiable abilities.

But, Isas found, impatient as he was, he could not be cross with her just now. The unhealthy flush had not faded from her cheeks, and the dark rings beneath her eyes contrasted sharply with the livid sunburn on her nose. He should _not_ have found that fetching, Isas knew, and yet somehow he did.

Deliberately casual, Isas laid a long hand on her shoulder. "Come on." he began once more, hoping his voice fell somewhere between firm and cajoling "We've both been at this a long time." Deftly, he snatched up her papers and shuffled them into neatness before stowing them in the hide binder for the night.

Niva had drifted to the door while his back was turned and was peering through the portal up and down the deserted hall indecisively. "They'll be along to douse lamps any time now," she observed with a sigh.

"Precisely." he beamed, and when he prodded her out the door ahead of him, she didn't protest.

As the two of them made their furtive way down the darkened corridor towards the dormitories, the near-last inhabitants besides cleaning crews, Isas told her in a low voice, "Now. I am going straight from here to the nearest pleasure house, where I fully intend to become disproportionately soused, fritter away all my money, and not return until the sun has been up at least half an hour." If Niva had noticed that he had neglected to take his own turning and was instead trailing her all the way to the girls' dorm, she made no mention of it. "As a result," he warned her, "I very much doubt that I shall be able to return to the lab before noon, at least...Probably later." As she padded along in front of him, he wondered when she'd removed her shoes, and where she'd left them. Surely he would have noticed her taking them off.

Their shadows kept pace alongside, making a mock of them on the pale wall: hers, a bent, child-like figure skipping ever ahead of his freakishly distended silhouette, slinking always behind. The contrast was laughable.

Coming to a halt with her hand on the latch, Niva turned full around, as if only just now aware that he was still following her. Craning back to blink owlishly up at him, she wondered aloud, "Are you trying to mind me?"

Isas waved and spluttered the ludicrous accusation away. "Of course not!" he swore.

She blinked, gave a completely disinterested "Oh." and quietly slammed the door in his face.

Hurrying on his own way with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, Isas wrestled with an odd mixture of vexation and relief. Dealing with that irascible, acid-tongued, maddening girl always left him that way: he could never be entirely sure she ever heard a word he said, or that she cared if she did.

Perhaps he would go and find that dolly-mop Niva had so disparagingly mentioned. A smile bought was still a smile, and was honest at least. In the company of an honest working girl, he would not have to worry about any perplexing underpinnings in her squarely purchased smile.

Despite his dire warnings—or rather, he groaned inwardly now, perhaps _because_ of them—Niva was in the scriptorium the next morning before him. Though not the only denizen of the high-ceilinged, tome-filed room by a respectable sum, he had no way of telling how long she'd been at it, and didn't trust her to give an honest answer if he asked

Looking up as he dropped his books at the table across from her, the girl smirked. "Long night?" she inquired sweetly.

Though the tower clock had only just rung the ninth of the morning and his tongue was still over-large and fuzzy, he did not answer. He would not give her the satisfaction. Certainly not when, although she'd declined to accompany him, he'd spent the better part of the night dodging the weighty feel of her invisible amber glance. Instead, he groused, "I thought you were going to sleep in."

"I did." Niva blinked at him. "In point of fact," she accused, "I thought you said you'd do the same."

Her arched brow dared him to contradict her, neatly show up the fact that she'd caught him out cheating at the unspoken race that had mutated out between them. When this eked out no response, Niva turned back to her work, bored of baiting him.

Clumsily dragging open his own books, Isas watched her—his eyes were always drawn to her as soon as she looked down; her lashes fell in a demure spray, and her face softened, until she caught him staring and took offense. Now, his lips pursed in disapproval. The rings under her eyes looked suspiciously deeper, and her lips were beginning to peel. As he watched, her note taking paused briefly while she coughed into her fist—a dry and wheezing sound that hadn't been there the day before.

Striving with every ounce of his being for nonchalance, Isas suggested after she quieted, "...Why don't you just take the day?" She glanced up involuntarily, face lifted in incredulity. "It's only Broadkin's interminable lectures this afternoon," he pointed out. "You can copy my notes."

Returning to her previous pose, Niva shook her head over her notebook as if mildly amused. "And take down a passel of misinformation in the process? No, thank you."

Bringing fingertips to the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes, Isas prayed for fortitude. 'Stubborn' wasn't even in it. "I'm just saying." he muttered. "You look as if you could use the rest."

She rolled her eyes sardonically, glancing briefly up at him. "Thanks _ever_ so." Her gaze was still glassy, over-bright.

There was silence for a time. Isas attempted to begin his own work and fumbled silently for something else to say. Niva continued to ignore him with an effortlessness he found disgusting. This game could go on all day, he knew.

But when she broke the lull presently with another broken string of coughs, ineffectually stifled, she spoke in afterthought, "And what would you have me do all day? Just _sleep_?"

Surprised that she was being even theoretically agreeable, Isas half-shrugged his approval. "It's not a bad idea."

She shot it absently down. "No." she scratched her chin and didn't even look up. "I've far too much to do today. Besides, I don't sleep here: I never sleep here."

Though knowing full well how biased and predisposed to exaggeration she was, he was almost inclined to believe her. "One day won't make a difference," he persisted.

"Not for you, maybe." Exasperated with his repeated disruptions of her concentration, she jabbed her pen accusingly. "All this pencil-pushing, this weighing out so much solvent to that much reactant, it might come easily to you." She'd expended enough energy on him and went back to writing. "It doesn't to me. _I_ have to work at it."

He could not remember when—or how, or why exactly—their partnership here at Lightsbridge had become a rivalry. Certainly, back at Winding Circle, there had always been a healthy measure of competition between them. But, as he remembered it, it had always been at least tolerably amiable. With the pressure building up here—but not only here, and for more reasons than he understood—under the strain, their working relationship began to fester, degenerating into this unhealthy drive for superiority. Because of it, the both of them said and did things that they mightn't have otherwise, but now it was always too late to take it back and so the both of them just kept at it. Besides, neither of them were the sort of person who really ever said 'sorry.'

With a sigh, Isas reflected on how much simpler life would be if he could only grasp a way to put into words the indelibly complex nonsense that banged about his head. There was so much he wanted to say, and would never know how to.

A small clatter made him look up with a start, in time to catch her final movements as Niva righted her inkwell before it spilled. Her hands were trembling; so badly, in fact, that she gripped the pen in white-knuckled fingers and pressed the heel of her hand tightly to the page as she wrote.

Dry-mouthed, Isas interjected, "Fine. Get someone else's notes to copy, if you take issue with mine."

She affected not to hear.

"Niva," he implored, a laugh in his voice to keep it light, "you carry on like this, you _will_ kill yourself." There was a slightly wild note in it; he was only half joking.

Slamming shut her book, Niva glared at him with eyes full of absolute hatred, snatched up her things, and moved off down the table.

Isas bit his tongue. Hard. He never knew what to say to her: never had, never would. She'd never listen, anyway. Not matter how fruitless or how infuriating, though, he couldn't stop himself still trying to talk to her, making a great ass of himself and driving the wedge between them even deeper for his trouble; it wasn't enough just to look. Like a miller moth to a candle flame—to use the trite old phrase—he continued to throw himself at her unrelenting disregard, no matter how often his wings were singed. He didn't care if she detested him; he wasn't quite sure he didn't loath her right back. All he knew was that rattling wheeze in her chest was scaring him to death.

He came up behind her as, relocated, she made to settle in, and touched her shoulder gently.

She jumped, spinning wide-eyed to face him, and Isas flinched inwardly. He always forgot how much she hated that. Brows knit, and with more effort than he would have ever believed it should take, he told her softly, "You know, I'm only trying to care about you."

"Well, don't." she snapped at him, jerking away. "No one asked you to, so _don't_." Her voice quavered and, inexplicably, her dark eyes misted. Turning her face quickly to hide the tears in a convenient onslaught of coughing, she hastily gathered up her half-laid out things and, in long, scissoring strides that could not by called running by any stretch of the imagination, quit the room.

Isas flopped bodily into her intended chair with a heavy puff of consternation. He would never understand that girl, not if he studied her for a hundred years—not that he'd _want_ to, he amended bitterly.

Back home, he could've easily had half a dozen girls dripping from his arm for just a murmur of feigned interest. Here he tried to show her genuine concern, and for thanks she leaped up and bit his nose off! Well, two could play that game well enough, Isas supposed. If she chafed under his regard, perhaps he wouldn't waste it on her in future.

No, instead he'd stand back and watch without a bloody word as she ran herself face-first into the ground. _He_ certainly wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it, nor the fact that this was largely his fault. If the idiot mule-headed girl would not even glance twice at him, he would not exert himself needlessly.


End file.
